INFORMATION RELIABILITY IN DEMENTIA SUFFERERS

The level of agreement between 58 patients suffering with dementia and their first‐degree relatives was assessed for various types of information using questions directly comparable between the patient and informant section of the Camdex schedule. The overall agreement was 76% but this fell considerably when specifically comparing answers for which the relatives' responses were positive. This indicates that the main form of error displayed was an under‐reporting of information by patients suffering with dementia. These findings pose important questions for clinical practice and research work. There is a need for further work to more precisely elicit the pattern of error and to investigate ways of improving information reliability. Copyright © 1991 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.